1,586 research outputs found
Stephanie Mathson interviews poet and author Jack Ridl
No full textPoet and author Jack Ridl explains how he began writing, the writer series at Hope College, his coach poems, his chapbook "Against elegies," how working and living in Michigan shapes his work, and works in progress. Ridl is interviewed by Stephanie Mathson of the Michigan State University Libraries. Part of the MSU Libraries' Michigan Writers Series
Mariano Rivera: Hemingway Hero
No full textThe traditional Hemingway hero often takes the form of an athlete: Joe DiMaggio in The Old Man and the Sea; Jack Brennan, the boxer in “Fifty Grand”; Manuel Garcia, the bullfighter in “The Undefeated.” No contemporary athlete better personifies the Hemingway hero than Mariano Rivera, the New York Yankee relief pitcher who, in 2019, became the first baseball player unanimously elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. During his nineteen-year career (1995–2013), Rivera demonstrated many qualities of the traditional Hemingway hero: simplicity in style, grace under pressure, stoic acceptance of defeat
The economic impact of Oregon's "Bottle bill"
No full textby Charles M. Gudger and Jack C. Bailes.This archived document is maintained by the State Library of Oregon as part of the Oregon Documents Depository Program. It is for informational purposes and may not be suitable for legal purposes.Includes bibliographical references (pages 71-73).Electronic reproduction. Salem, Or. : State Library of Oregon, 2022 Electronic reproduction from print version OrMode of access: Internet from the Oregon Government Publications Collection.Text in English
From the ‘freedom of the streets’: a biographical study of culture and social change in the life and work of writer Jack Common (1903-1968)
No full textThe author assesses the life and work of the Newcastle upon Tyne born writer Jack Common in the light of the massive social, economic and cultural changes which have affected the North East of England and wider society through the period of Common's life and afterwards. He seeks to point out the relevance of Common to the present day in terms of his ideas about class, community and the individual and in the light of Common's sense of rebelliousness influenced by a process of grass-roots education and self-improvement. In addition, he draws upon his own extensive experience in community arts and education, looking, in particular, at the work he and others have carried out on Common over the last thirty years and assessing its value in the light of recent political changes. The author draws together the range of biographical and literary criticism carried out by a range of individuals over this period of time and brings into print hitherto unpublished material about Common's life and work by interviewing family members and associates, exploring the Common Archive at Newcastle University and other largely ignored sources, and studying Common's significant association with George Orwell in great detail. Through all of this, he seeks to argue that Common's life and ideas remain worthy of close attention in the present day
The boxer-hero as literary tragic figure: A study in contemporary relocation
No full textAlexander Solzhenitsyn declared in his Nobel Prize speech that literature best conveys the life experience of humans from nation to nation, from century to century. It is to that record that future generations will go to discover the mythos by which a given society endures. Heroism is the special prerogative of no single era. True, Periclean Greece and Elizabethan England- to name only two- provided the terrain, especially in their literature, for heroism to flourish. This study has sought to locate a single modern counterpart to one of classical tragedy's staple figures, the warrior-hero. It has found him, in new guise in the boxer-hero of contemporary literature. The contemporary relocation of this concept is illustrated in the selected works of seven American authors who published their novels, short stories, and plays during the period 1925 to 1969. For the purpose of this study the literary heritage of Ernest Hemingway becomes a transitional force. Hemingway draws heroic fervor from ancient sources while making his heros subject to the peculiar "lostness" of this century. Chapter II of this study follows the linkage, through selected examples in Hemingway's work, between sport and the hero. It chronicles the interpenetration of both by the tragic sense. The Cuban fisherman-hero of Hemingway's novel, The Old Man and The Sea, becomes for this thesis a prototypical sports hero serving to represent one enactment of the tragic warrior hero relocated in a modern setting.
Improving jack-up capabilities
No full textSo far jack-ups have successfully operated in depths of 80 to 100 m and some are capable of operating in water depths of up to 150 m. In order to circumvent the depth limitation, it was suggested by Heerema Marine Contractors (HMC) that a base could be designed with the ability to support a jack-up rig, thereby increasing its operational depth capability. Such a support structure for jack-ups (named SSfJ) that can possibly be mobilized and demobilized by an HMC vessel would allow HMC to offer its services to another part of the Oil and Gas industry, the Drilling and Workover sector. A first investigation into the feasibility of this idea is carried out in this thesis. The focus of the thesis is placed on determining whether a 3-legged North Sea drilling jack-up can potentially survive on a SSfJ and on the calculation of the structural characteristics of the SSfJ that are required for enabling a jack-up to do so. The first step in this research was to verify if there is a commercial driver for the SSfJ. Therefore a market research took place which focused on the North Sea offshore drilling industry and showed that there is a need for high spec and deep water jack-ups and a great need for reduction in drilling costs. The driver was therefore clear, namely that there is a need to design a SSfJ that will enable jack-ups to operate in deeper water without much increase in costs. Then, based on market information it was decided to consider a SSfJ that would add 30m of water depth capability to the GustoMSC CJ 70 jack-up type. The main (technical) part of the thesis focused on identifying how the jack-up integrity will be influenced when it is placed on the SSfJ and what structural characteristics the SSfJ should have in order to enable a jack-up to survive on it through the harshest North Sea environmental conditions. The influence of the use of the SSfJ was assessed via reasonable assumptions that were then verified with analysis in the software SACS. The required structural characteristics of the SSfJ were identified as the SSfJ stiffness and rotational fixity at the SSfJ – jack-up interface. Recommended values for these characteristics were identified via an iterative procedure that includes a simplified dynamic analysis method that uses a Dynamic Amplification Factor. The results were then verified with a more accurate method that employs the time domain simulations in SACS. The outcome of the research is that the jack-up integrity is not influenced negatively by the use of SSfJ and that if the SSfJ has the recommended structural characteristics then the jack-up can survive the harshest environmental conditions in the North Sea.Bottom Founded StructuresOffshore and DredgingMechanical, Maritime and Materials Engineerin
Towards predicting and tailoring properties of energetic materials
No full textThe field of energetic materials (EMs) involves the study of materials
(explosives, propellants, and pyrotechnics) that can release a significant
amount of energy when initiated. This property renders EMs particularly useful
to a wide array of industries including space travel (rocket propellants), mining
(demolition charges), and defence applications. The propensity to release a
significant amount of energy upon initiation means these materials are
inherently dangerous, as such they are subjected to stringent safety
requirements, and must be rigorously characterised prior to use. The safety of
an EM is often quantified through the evaluation of the sensitivity (propensity
to initiate) with respect to different stimuli such as impact, shock, friction, and
electric spark. The focus of this work is the impact sensitivity, a solid-state
property which can be influenced through changes in the orientation of
molecules in 3D space (polymorphism or co-crystallisation) as well as through
changing the structure or bonding environment of the molecules comprising
the material. Prediction of this metric has been shown in previous work within
the group to be computationally achievable for molecular EMs if the crystal
structure of the material is known. This is completed through use of the
vibrational up-pumping methodology.
Vibrational up-pumping refers to the process by which mechanical impact
energy excites delocalised low energy motions in a material and is
subsequently channelled upwards into localised molecular vibrations. The
vibrational states excited through up-pumping are termed the two-phonon
density of states, which represents a measure of how efficiently the initial
energy can become trapped on the molecular vibrations. Projection of the twophonon
density of states onto the underlying vibrational character yields the
up-pumped density which shows a correlation with experimental impact
sensitivity. To this date, this method has been applied exclusively to molecular
EMs, successfully reproducing experimental sensitivities. While important,
focusing on solely molecular materials overlooks those of growing importance
such as co-crystals, salts and coordination polymers. Application of the
vibrational up-pumping methodology to materials from these areas of growing
interest forms the backbone for the work presented in this thesis.
Chapter 2 addresses a number of areas within the vibrational up-pumping
methodology that could be improved upon, namely, the generation of
consistent phonon density of states (g(w)) spectra as well as partial g(w)
spectra, the determination of the location of uppermost phonon frequency
(Wmax) and the interrogation of vibrational modes within the solid-state
vibrations to track the local modes of vibration (bond stretches and angle
bends). Three Python scripts have been developed to address these problems
and improve the efficiency and applicability of the process by which the impact
sensitivity of an EM is predicted via the vibrational up-pumping methodology.
Chapter 3 focuses on two unexpected findings that had recently come to light
in the EMs group at Edinburgh: a co-crystal of FOX-7 with the non-energetic
p-phenylenediamine (PPD) that appeared to be more hazardous to
mechanical impact than the pure EM, and a new high-pressure polymorph of
3,4,5-trinitro-1H-pyrazole (TNP) that was markedly more sensitive to initiation
than the ambient pressure polymorph. For the former study, strong hydrogen
bonding interactions significantly altered the molecular conformation of FOX-
7. For the latter, the molecular conformation remained unchanged in the
ambient and high-pressure polymorphs, meaning that crystal packing or
pressure-induced vibrational mode hardening must account for the increase in
mechanical sensitivity. Taken together both studies present challenges for the
up-pumping model, which if successful would allow important
structure/property connections to be made.
Chapter 4 focuses on salt coordination polymers, all of which present as
exceptionally sensitive EMs. The study began with lead azide (LA), which is
often used in small quantities as a detonator for a much larger mass of a less
sensitive EM. It is well documented that lead has drastic adverse effects to
both people and the environment and as such REACH (Registration,
Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) has issued a ban on
the use of LA. This has necessitated the development of a number of ‘green’
copper-containing replacements (DBX-1, DBX-2, DBX-3 and Cu(ADNP)) with
comparable impact sensitivity and detonation characteristics such that they
could potentially be used as drop-in replacements. This type of EM has not
been studied before using the vibrational up-pumping procedure; they present
a number of unique challenges, exemplified primarily by the need to separate
the lattice modes from the molecular modes, which is a key requirement of the
vibrational up-pumping model. In this chapter a full discussion on a range of
mechanochemical models are investigated, from simple phonon heating,
through to up-pumping and consideration of target (i.e. trigger mode)
activation. Culminating in the development of a workflow for the treatment of
such materials in the future within the vibrational up-pumping methodology.
In Chapter 5 the emphasis switches towards applying the up-pumping model
in a wider capacity to explore the effects of molecular structure on the impact
sensitivity of molecular energetics. Here, the investigation centred on a series
of chemically related EMs from three common families, namely pyrazoles,
tetrazoles and nitrate esters. A number of these materials only differ by the
location or substitution of a single functional group, and yet taken together
cover a wide range of impact sensitivity response. Successful predictions of
their respective impact sensitivities by the up-pumping model would therefore
present a unique opportunity to fully explore structure/property relationships,
with molecular flexibility, functional group identity and proximity being key
structural features to explore. The data set also allowed further exploration of
the trigger mode activation introduced in Chapter 4, where only the weakest
bonds in the molecules are vibrationally excited by up-pumping. This approach
improves the physical basis for impact sensitivity prediction.
Collectively, this thesis explores the application of the vibrational up-pumping
methodology to various EMs that present with greater structural complexity
than the single-component molecular materials that it was initially designed to
model. This work has been aided by the development of supplementary
Python scripts which attempt to improve both the efficiency and applicability of
the vibrational up-pumping methodology. If successful this work will act to
considerably validate vibrational up-pumping, as well as to provide the
opportunity to explore in-depth structure/property relationships, to understand
the physical basis of impact sensitivity. Such understanding may lead to the
development of tailored EMs with desired physical properties in the future
Hit the road, Jack
No full textJack is determined to find his missing father. He tracks him down to the seamy side of town and an underworld that has no place in modern society. A second thought-provoking book from this lively new author.
A wonderfully original story to follow this author’s debut as a children’s author with Wipe Out. As in Wipe Out, the book follows a child through a difficult journey but humour and hope spreads through the novel, giving it that feel-good factor at the end.
Jack decides to track down his father when his mother announces she is to re-marry. Jack is a bit of a geek – he’s a whizz-kid into nutritional values of food and goes to a school for gifted children. It’s this that introduces the element of humour to the novel, through his friendships at school with other equally gifted kids.
During Jack’s search, he befriends a homeless Big Issue seller, plus dog, and a Black soul singer and soul music is a feature of the novel. The two men try to dissuade Jack from finding his father, since they know he lives with the a ‘no-good bunch of hobos’ who live on the streets, funded by crime and even child abuse.
Written in Mimi Thebo’s distinctive voice, this second novel is sure to attract attention
Experiment-based relations between level ice loads and managed ice loads on an Artic jack-up structure
No full textJack-ups have been constructed for numerous ocean environments, but to date there has been no operating experience under Arctic sea ice conditions. The current state of jack-up technology does not allow working outside the ice-free season and thus ice management will be needed to extend the drilling season. Currently, ice load calculations are reasonably well defined for level ice, while the ice loads due to managed ice are not known evenly well. In order to extend the drilling season for multi-legged jack-up structures by means of ice management, a better understanding of managed ice loads is required. To this purpose, the relation between level ice loads and managed ice loads on a multi-legged jack-up structure is investigated. Experiments for a 4-leg jack-up model were carried out in the ice tank of the Hamburgische Schiffbau-Versuchsanstalt (HSVA) in Germany, at a scaling ratio of 1:32. Two ice thicknesses (0.5 m and 1.0 m full scale) and three model orientations (0°, 22.5° and 45°) were tested. Additionally, ice concentration (level ice, 8/10th and 6/10th) and ice velocity (0.5 m/s and 1.0 m/s full scale) were varied. This paper reports on the model tests and the corresponding parametric study that was carried out with a focus on managed ice parameters. The relation between the observed level ice loads and the observed managed ice loads is quantified and discussed for varying orientations, ice velocities and ice thicknesses. Video and time series analyses were used to correlate ice loads to in-situ failure modes, and the results of these are summarised.Hydraulic EngineeringCivil Engineering and Geoscience
Bernard Heldmann and the Union Jack, 1880-83: The making of a professional author
No full textThis essay examines two little-known agents operating within the juvenile publishing market of the 1880s: the quality boys' weekly Union Jack (1880-83) and one of its key contributors, Bernard Heldmann (1857-1915). Heldmann's apprenticeship on the staff of the Union Jack prepared him for a successful second career as "Richard Marsh," a bestselling author of gothic and crime stories for the adult market. It provided him with an acute understanding of the niche marketing of periodicals and genre fiction, the production of serial and short stories, and the uses of formula fiction. Yet, at the same time, Heldmann's work increasingly challenged notions of "healthy" juvenile fiction by introducing elements of emotionality, homoeroticism, crime, and horror, most notably in his final serial, "A Couple of Scamps" (1882-83). Heldmann's apparent popularity and business sense challenge the current scholarly assumption that turn-of-the-century boys' fiction did not feature emotional male relationships
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